>Also, any non-bionic technician willing to share how many hours they have >taken to do a repair like this - start to finish, not including pitch >adjustments and tuning (just clamping, drilling, bonding, bolting and cleanup)? > >Thanks. I'm old and fat, so I assume I qualify as non-bionic. I take off the lid and put a couple of monster clamps across the top of the back, drawing the gap in a bit. If I can close the gap, the clamps will hold it while I take out plate screws, drill through holes (3/8"), and install carriage bolts from the back. I use washers that will fit around the square shank at the head of the bolt to get a bigger footprint than the head provides. You can sink a 3/8 carriage bolt pretty deep into a piece of poplar otherwise. After the holes are drilled and I have bolts in place and have vacuumed up, I loosen the clamps enough to pour Titebond into the crack, helping it as necessary with a thin steel spatula purchased for just this sort of thing. Glue in, I crank the nuts (lock washer underneath) tight and use the bolts to pull the crack(s) together. Trim the bolts with a hacksaw, mop up the glue, pack up the tools, take them to truck, bring back my tuning case, put the lid back on, pitch adjust and tune the piano. I haven't lowered the pitch to bolt the back, so the thing is often not far off, and I don't have coils and such to mess with. Takes somewhere between an hour and an hour an a half for the repair, plus whatever the tuning takes, and I'm done in one trip in usually around 2.5-3 hours total. No failures yet, that I know of. Ron N
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